Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 39, Issue 10, October 2011, Pages 6351-6359
Energy Policy

The prospective environmental impacts of Iran nuclear energy expansion

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2011.07.036Get rights and content

Abstract

Nuclear energy has direct impacts on the environment. Uranium mining, milling, and enrichment affect the livelihoods around and stress on the water resources. In addition, nuclear power plants consume huge amount of water and elevate the water temperature of the ambient water resources. The Iranian nuclear program has pledged for 20,000 MW of nuclear energy by 2025. The fulfillment of such ambitious target stresses the environment and increases the environmental degradation cost of the country. Iran central semi-arid area and the Persian Gulf are the major regions with high risk of impacts from the current nuclear program.

Highlights

► Fragile ecosystem of the Persian Gulf would not tolerate the ambitious nuclear programs of its coastal countries. ► Water resources in Iran inland area are depleting fast due to the unsustainable development on the past. ► Iranian nuclear program is going to put an additional serious stress on the water resources of the country.

Introduction

The Iranian nuclear program embodies diverse national, regional, and international dimensions. The majority of the controversial discussions on the Iranian nuclear program have focused on issues such as technical capabilities or political concerns over the proliferation threat, while other dimensions have been often neglected. Considering the future of the Iranian nuclear program, several other crucial issues remain unresolved and intentionally or inadvertently concealed. The economic feasibility of Iran's nuclear energy and the impacts of this industry on the environment have rarely been discussed openly. Nuclear energy is among those industries that have a significant impact on the surrounding environments and livelihoods. This impact is initiated from the very beginning of the nuclear fuel production chain and lasts up to the disposal of nuclear waste and decommission of the power plant (Diehl, 2004, Woods, 2006, WNA, 2009, Sue Wareham, 2007). In 2010, Iran, in collaboration with Russia, loaded fuel on its first nuclear power plant at the west coast of the Persian Gulf—Bushehr. Additionally, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) called for vast exploration of uranium mines across the country to secure its growing demand for nuclear fuel. Ali Akbar Salehi,1 at that time director of the AEOI, announced that Iran planned to explore uranium to meet the country's growing future energy needs: “Previously, approximately a third of the country had been explored for uranium. But now, with the ample budget that the administration has committed to the organization (the AEOI), all of the country has been surveyed and some very promising veins of uranium have been discovered.” (AEOI, 2010a, AEOI, 2010b)

Aside from the economic feasibility of this plan, Iran is faced with a complicated decision that is likely to substantially increase its environmental degradation cost (EDC) in the future. In 2005, the World Bank estimated the minimum EDC in Iran to amount to $10 billion,2 which is3 8.8 percent of the GDP — Mean estimate, 2002 (World Bank, 2009) (Table 1). As compared to 1–2 percent of GDP in OECD countries, 3.3 percent of GDP in Mexico, and 8 percent of GDP in China. In comparison to other countries in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA), Iran's EDC costs are even three times higher than the rate of EDC in those countries (per GDP) (Leila Critoru, 2010).4 This paper explores the current nuclear policy in Iran and its role in accelerating the rate of environmental degradation, which imposes higher costs. Despite having 50 years of research background, the field experience of nuclear industry in Iran is rather recent and generally limited to few sites. The major steps towards developing an applied nuclear industry will likely take place now and would take place from now up to 2025. Consequently a complete analysis of the impact of the current policies is not possible at the moment. The urgency of this issue combined with the lack of available time to engage in a long-term impact analysis forces this study to limit itself to a general exploration of the Iranian nuclear industry while analyzing its future environmental threats in the context of common practices around the world.

Nuclear energy has negative impacts on water and land degradation (Jim Green, 2009), which constitute of the majority share of EDC in Iran combined with 5.25 percent of the GDP (excluding the marine coast of the Persian Gulf) (World Bank, 2009). The nuclear industry needs a significant volume of water for both fuel and electricity production. The uranium mining, milling, and enrichment consume a massive amount of water (Diehl, 2004), yet the nuclear power plant itself remains the thirstiest energy industry (Sue Wareham, 2007, Woods, 2006) and consequently has to be located at a water rich area. Uranium mining is fundamentally different to other types of mining as it not only produces more waste but also more harmful waste for the surrounding environment. The waste is both solid and liquid in nature. Considerable resources are spent on addressing these highly toxic wastes, including energy, water, and industrial chemicals (Mudd, 2006).

Section snippets

The nuclear fuel chain

The uranium content of the ore is often only between 0.1 and 0.2 percent (Diehl, 2006) requiring therefore large amounts of ore to be extracted for few kilos of uranium. Due to the radioactive nature of uranium, any mining leads to the production of significant quantities of radioactive wastes—particularly waste rock and tailings. Studies show that 85 percent of the radioactivity to be initially present in the ore remain present in the tailings (Diehl, 2006). On average, each ton of extracted

Nuclear power plant

Nuclear power is the thirstiest of all energy industries as it consumes with a single reactor (1000 Mw) 35–65 million liters of fresh water daily (Sue Wareham, 2007). The vast consumption of water is common among all thermal types of power plants, nonetheless, the nuclear industry sets itself apart from others through a substantially higher water consumption than the average. This is due to the steam in nuclear power plants that is designed to operate at lower temperatures and pressures, which

Uranium mining in Iran

Iran launched its uranium mining project in collaboration with Russian and Chinese technicians by the early 1990s (Ghannadi-Maragheh, 2003).7 The AEOI claims the number of future uranium mines across the country to exceed 400 mines8 with an overall capacity of 5000 tons of uranium (AEOI, 2010a, AEOI, 2010b).9

Nuclear power plants in Iran

Since 1974, when Iran officially announced its nuclear energy road map, the country has pursued nuclear energy capacities as a way to lower its dependency on fossil fuels. The Bushehr nuclear power plant was the initial step towards a 20-year plan to build 23.000 MW of nuclear energy capacity in Iran (Khan, 2010, AEOI, 2010a, AEOI, 2010b). This plan has been revised ever since. In 2006, the Iranian parliament decided that the country should have 20.000 MW of nuclear energy capacity connected to

Discussion

The unsustainable developments in Iran during the last two decades have caused serious environmental problems that are underlined by the extremely high environmental degradation costs. Introducing a new technology with severe negative impacts on the environment would worsen the current situation and lead to an irreversible path in the country. Iran's target of 20,000 MW of nuclear energy capacity also means that the country will need 3500 tons of nuclear fuel annually. Due to the international

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